


so shall he crucify you

by Lise



Series: Remember This Cold [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Guilt, Loki-centric, M/M, Memorials, Post-Movie(s), Remember This Cold, in which Loki feels bad about that stuff he did, not a very happy fic, what do I even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the five year anniversary of the alien attack of May 2012. This creates some strain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so shall he crucify you

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a message received from an anon that was...basically the entire plot of this fic. I just wrote it - give the anon credit for the idea. ...does that make sense? I hope it does. (Continuing some of my meditation on Steve/Loki in a wider world context, and continuing my trend of blithely ignoring the timeline of the MCU canon, except for when it suits me. In this case it doesn't, and since in a recent fic I mentioned a four year time frame...anyway, enough making excuses. Enjoy, with many thanks to my wonderful [beta](http://ameliarating.tumblr.com), and also my cheerleaders over on Tumblr - shoutouts to [maeglthebagel](http://maeglthebagel.tumblr.com) and [portraitoftheoddity](http://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com) especially for their particular support.
> 
> The title comes from Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet"; the full lines are:
>
>> For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.  
> Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.  
> Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,  
> So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

“There’s an event tonight,” Steve said. “I’m expected to be there. I might be late.”

Loki looked up from his book and cocked his head. “What sort of event?”

Steve did not look at him. “Just one of those things,” he said, with the kind of evasiveness that Loki knew meant he was lying. “You know how it is. Don’t stay up waiting for me, all right?”

“I will not,” Loki said coolly, after a moment in which he considered calling Steve on his lie and asking what he was hiding. “Perhaps I shall sprawl across the whole bed and leave not a bit of room for you, hmm?” Steve laughed, but it sounded weak, almost anemic, and when he kissed Loki goodbye it was brief and distracted.

Something was troubling him, Loki thought. Steve would not lie lightly, especially not when he knew how little point there was in it. Perhaps it was nothing. Loki had his secrets, after all: could not Steve have his?

Still, something niggled at him like a small thorn in his foot. Steve did not lie lightly, and he seldom kept secrets – at least not so obviously.

If there was an appearance of the Avengers, Loki realized abruptly, it would be filmed. He could check, easily, how great a lie Steve had told – if only to be certain that he was safe. He flicked on the television and went to the news – and fell still.

“Tonight in Midtown, at the proposed site of the as yet unnamed memorial park, New Yorkers gather to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the event that forever shattered our understanding of the world we live in. Five years ago tomorrow, a portal into deep space opened in the skies above what was then Stark Tower, unleashing hours of horror averted only by the swift action of the team of heroes known as ‘the Avengers’…”

Loki stood, unsteadily, muting the television with a flick of his wrist. This was where Steve was going, he thought. The screen changed to a view of a crowd holding candles, then a few individuals. In one corner there was a woman crying.

Loki could identify where they were easily enough. It took only a little magic to bring himself there, and a little more to make himself unnoticeable. He hovered around the fringes of the gathering, watching them with an odd, cold feeling in his stomach. Guilt, perhaps. Or shame. He should not be here, lurking like a wolf around their firelight as they grieved their own.

_You should not be here,_ Loki’s mind whispered, and he pushed it away. Steve. He was here for Steve. Pulling his thoughts away from the people around him, Loki looked for a raised platform above the crowd, a place for the Avengers to stand, the heroes to console their people – but there was none. Everyone was on even footing, and there was no sign that anyone expected something so dramatic as the appearance of their saviors.

Loki realized, slowly, that Steve was not coming here as Captain America, as a symbol to give comfort to the masses. He was here because this was his city and he grieved its wounds. Grieved its dead, as one of these mortals: shared their pain, their loss.

Loss Loki had given them. Grief he had taught them. Chaos and destruction he had left in his wake.

The cold feeling spread deeper into his stomach. A wild part of Loki was tempted, suddenly, to reveal himself: to cast off the glamour and step forward and say _look, look, it is I, your monster, do what you will._

He could hear weeping, and made himself step forward, shifting the spell he wore into a glamour – a young woman, slight and dark-haired, unremarkable. He moved toward a young man, his shoulders hunched, standing on his own. “Who are you here for?” He asked quietly. The boy looked startled at being spoken too, but his red-eyed glance at Loki took in the glamour and he relaxed.

“My best friend,” he said after a moment. Looking at him, Loki realized he was even younger than he’d first thought. Five years ago he would have been a child. “Elena. We were walking back from school and…” He gestured skyward. Loki’s stomach knotted violently. “What about you?”

“What about…” It took Loki a moment to comprehend the question and then he wanted to laugh. “I was fortunate,” he said, hoping the boy did not hear the trace of irony in his voice. “My brother was injured, but not badly. I am simply here because…” Loki trailed off. The boy nodded.

“I get it,” he said. _You do?_ Loki wanted to say. _I do not._

“Do you ever-” He heard himself speaking, almost unwillingly. “The man – the alien who led the attack. What do you think…should have happened to him?”

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed, looking confused for a moment. “Oh – the Loki guy? I guess…I don’t know. Right after – I was one of those people who was really mad, you know, about how he just got sent back wherever. My parents kept saying he should’ve been executed here. Now, I guess…I don’t know. It doesn’t matter so much to me. I know plenty of people are still angry, but…I can’t do that.”

“What if he was still alive?” Loki heard himself ask. “Would you want him dead?”

“No,” the boy said, after a moment. “Or – I don’t know. It wouldn’t bring Elena back. Or anyone else. Would it? If I just kept being angry….I can’t do that like some people can.” The boy paused, and Loki could see the question he was about to ask: _what do you think?_ He took a step back, feeling himself starting to shake.

“I should-” He gestured, vaguely, and the boy gave him a wan smile and a weak wave. “I am – I am sorry. For your loss.”

“Thank you,” said the boy, and Loki could see him about to break into tears again. He retreated, quickly, breathing fast, his stomach burning. He should never have come here. He should never have come _here._ He wondered, suddenly, if there were vigils like this on Jotunheim, of the day the Bifrost had struck, commemorating those who had died there. Frost giants mourning their dead, however they did that.

What was Steve thinking, as he stood somewhere in this crowd? Did he feel anger, confronted with this reminder of what Loki had done? Or guilt, for saving Loki from the blood-price he ought to pay?

Loki teleported himself back to their apartment, catching himself on the counter. He couldn’t stop shaking and he felt as though he might be sick. He swallowed it down and made himself straighten and walk to the couch, sit down. He felt brittle, too brittle to move safely. _This is what you are,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. _This is what you do. What follows you, wherever you go._

He stared straight ahead at the window looking out on the street, unmoving, for several hours, an awful numbness spreading through his limbs.

* * *

Steve came in quietly sometime after midnight. Loki could tell he was moving carefully, trying not to make a sound. He jumped when Loki turned on the light and made himself stand.

“Loki!” Steve said. “You _scared_ me.” He checked himself, frowning. “I told you not to stay up for me.”

 “Did you have a good time?” He asked. His voice sounded like someone else’s. Steve’s frown deepened. He looked tired, Loki thought. Exhausted, really. Guilt and sorrow weighing him down, perhaps.

“It was – fine,” Steve said, scanning Loki’s face, but he had been careful to wipe it clean of all emotion. “I wouldn’t call it _good_ – have you just been sitting here in the dark?”

Loki waved a hand loosely as if to say _no matter._ “What did you say you were doing?”

“I – a thing,” Steve said, seeming taken off guard. “Loki – you’re acting a little weird.”

“A thing,” Loki pressed. “What sort of thing? It is quite late for one of your public appearances.”

“Just – something I needed to do,” Steve said, evading again. The hollow feeling in Loki’s guts only grew. “Are you all right? Is there something – is there something you think is going on?”

“Would this something,” Loki said, his voice still that strange, too light tone that he did not know how to reconcile with how he felt, “have anything to do with the vigil that was held tonight? I understand it is the five year anniversary of certain _events._ ” Steve went still. Only for a moment, but it was enough. Loki cocked his head. “Why did you not tell me?”

“I…” Loki saw Steve swallow. “It didn’t seem…”

“Oh, I understand,” Loki heard himself cut in. He did not feel, almost, that he had control over what he was saying; the words issued from him so easily it was as though they were already there, waiting to be spoken. “You would hardly want me to be there. But that does not explain why you felt you could not mention it. Did you fear my feelings would be hurt?”

Steve shifted. “It’s not that I didn’t want you to be there.”

“Really? I would think it positively indecent. Like bringing a murderer to a victim’s funeral.” He saw Steve’s shoulders lock tight, his eyes flicker away. “Or were you trying to forget that?”

“I wasn’t trying to forget anything,” Steve said, and his frown just kept deepening. “I feel like you’re…can we have a conversation about this?”

“Is that not what we’re having?”

“I feel like you’re having a conversation with someone else,” Steve said. “I haven’t really had a chance to say much.”

Loki spread his hands. “Then by all means. Speak.”

“Loki-” He could hear the faint note of frustration in Steve’s voice, watched him close his eyes and force himself to calm. “Yes. I was at the vigil. I didn’t tell you because I thought it would upset you – and I was clearly right.”

“Upset me?” Loki widened his eyes. “Do I seem upset?”

“Yes,” Steve said, his voice a little flat. “You do. Stop – I don’t know what you’re trying to pretend, but I’m not convinced.”

“I am not trying to pretend anything. Are you saying you did not consider the fact that it would be _distasteful_ at best to have me there? That you did not think about how these mourners were there because of me? That I may well have _personally_ killed-”

“Loki,” Steve said tightly, “stop it.”

“Why,” Loki asked, almost breathless, taking a step forward. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” Steve said. “You _are._ ”

“Why?” Loki heard himself ask, his stomach churning and his heart pounding uncomfortably fast. “Because you don’t like thinking about how your lover is a murderer-” _Monster,_ he would have said, but Steve did not like that word, and that was not the argument Loki wanted to have – and he _did_ want an argument, he realized suddenly, almost distantly. That was what he was doing. Picking a fight with Steve because he wanted-

He wasn’t sure what he wanted.

“What do you want me to say?” Steve said, his voice rising. “Of _course_ I don’t like it! It makes me feel-”

“Sick?” Loki said, feeling his mouth twist into a grotesque smile. “Angry?”

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Steve burst out. “Do you _want_ me to be angry?”

_Yes,_ Loki thought suddenly, wildly. _I want you to be angry. I want you to grab me by the throat and beat me until I bleed, I want you to punish me as I deserve, but I do not deserve to have what I want._ His throat closed and he nearly reeled.

“I didn’t go because of you, or because I need a reminder, or whatever you think was going on,” Steve said, his voice rough. “I went because this is _my_ city and I wanted to be there.”

Loki took a step back. “I was there,” he said, his voice rough. Steve jerked, blinked.

“What?”

“I was there,” he said. “I went and stood – I wanted to see. In disguise. I should have-” _Gone as myself. Let them rip me to shreds. Or else killed them all._ Loki felt dizzy, unsteady. Steve looked like he was feeling nauseous himself and Loki wondered why. Because he understood the obscenity of Loki’s presence, or some other reason?

“Loki,” Steve said, and swallowed. “You…shouldn’t have done that.”

“I needed to see,” Loki said. “I needed-” He cut off. He could see Steve’s chest moving with his shallow breaths, and licked his lips. “How can you come back here,” he said, his voice thin. “Come back, from there, planning to get into bed with me-”

Steve shook his head. “It’s not about forgetting,” he said, his voice rough. “I remember…I remember all the time. But I know that’s…I know that’s not all you are.”

“It is to them,” Loki said, gesturing vaguely toward the outside.

“They don’t know everything.” Steve took a deep breath. “If you wanted to do something…”

Loki let out a sharp laugh. “Do something? Like what? I cannot bring back their dead.” Steve flinched, and Loki looked away. “Perhaps we should not speak of this.”

“Maybe not,” Steve said, sounding tired. “I need to go to sleep. Maybe…maybe in the morning…”

_What will be different then,_ a part of Loki wanted to ask. _I will be no less what I am, then._

_Do you forgive me,_ he wanted to ask, but did not think he wanted to hear the answer.

“Go,” Loki said, looking away. “Sleep. I will join you, if you wish.”

“Of course I wish,” Steve said, but with a kind of weariness, as though he was obliged to say the words. “Nothing’s changed, Loki.” He paused, as though he wanted to say more, but turned without speaking further and trudged down the hall toward the bedroom. Loki stared after him, still hollow, still brittle. Steve had not asked, he thought selfishly, if he was all right. He did not think he was. He wanted to do something reckless, dangerous. He felt a sick urge to look up the numbers he had not cared to know, of people killed, or injured, or maimed. He had one name (Elena); how many more could he remember?

Loki squeezed his eyes shut and tried to empty his mind. If this was guilt, he thought, he did not want it.


End file.
